Happy Birthday, Emi!

Emi’s birthday will be in August – and I got messages to Emi from those who could attend the Celebrating Protest website meeting on Thursday. It’s posted in the Social Movements class blog, so please take a look!

And it would be great if you could write some messages to Emi using this class blog space, to celebrate her birthday!
(And actually, Norma’s birthday is very close to Emi’s, too!)

-Tomomi

Podcasts from Celebrating Protest series

Finally, all podcasts are on-line!

Noriaki Imai (Student, Environment and Peace Activist)
“Why I went to Iraq: Three Years Later”　

Tari Ito (Performance Artist) and MASA (Jazz Saxophonist)
“Rubber Tit”

Hitomi Kamanaka (Film Director)
“Q&A with Director Hitomi Kamanaka”　
- panel discussion on Director Kamanaka’s film, “Rokkashomura Rhapsody,” with Kamanaka, Judy Hoffman (Film Director,Cinema and Media Studies), Michael Raine (Cinema and Media Studies/ EALC) and Norma Field (EALC)

Michiko Nakajima (Lawyer)
“The Fifteen-Woman Lawsuit against Self-Defense Forces in Iraq”
Discussant: John Comaroff (Anthropology), Translation: Norma Field (EALC)

Emi Koyama
“Colonialism, Militarism, and the Political Economy of Transracial Adoption”　

Emi Koyama (Director, Intersex Initiative)
“Intersex at the Intersection of Queer Theory and Disability Theory”　

Yoshifumi Tawara（Sec. General of Children and Texbooks Network 21)
“Japanese Education and Society in Crisis”　
Translation: Norma Field (EALC)

Emi’s report on a NWSA panel on conservative backlash against feminism in Japan

There was a panel session, “Tangled Threads of Backlash against Feminism in Contemporary Japan” at the National Women’s Studies Assocation conference in St. Charles, IL, with Masami Saito, a feminist activist/scholar from Toyama, Japan, Emi Koyama, me and Norma as a moderator.

Tina asked me to write a report on this (and I am asking Lauren to report on it, too!), but Emi already posted a very detailed report of the session in her blog – so take a look!

http://eminism.org/archive/2007/07/03-22.html

response to “From ‘Intersex’ to ‘DSD’”

For a lack of a better expression, Emi Koyama’s keynote speech at Translating Identity (“From ‘Intersex’ to ‘DSD’”) simply blew my mind. It is such an exquisitely rich entwinement of various topics of and related to the issue of the term “intersex.” As a gender studies major, I was ashamed by how fuzzy I was about the very definition of “intersex,” so Emi’s list of common misconceptions was definitely helpful. Along with that clarification, I am also glad to learn about other issues orbiting intersex studies, such as “public stripping,” “the impaired role,” and the power of “normalizing medicine.” Some questions that remains are: what are the social costs of intersex/DSD people not forming a political community? Why do so many people, intersex individuals included, feel indifferent to the urgency of solving social problems associated with our anxieties about bodily differences and sexuality? How can pop culture contribute to or inhibit such a solution?

integrating the differentiation

Emi’s second talk here entitled “Intersex at the Intersection of Queer theory and Disability theory” introduced me to a number of new ideas, as I previously was pretty unaware of much about queer theory, disability theory or intersex. One of the things that really surprised me was her talk of the different biases that the medical profession has in treating certain “abnormalities”–to the point of arbitrarily setting down rules to perpetuate other arbitrary societal norms.

Nostalgia..

All of these posts about Nori and RubberTIT/tari&MASA make me wish that it were still the beginning of this quarter! It was awesome getting to know Nori a lot better when we were showing him around campus. I can’t believe he’s gone through so much at such a young age… To think that there is only a few years between us is crazy!

MASA’s saxophone performance during one of our class dinners was a definite highlight. I was so blown away by her playing! And then a week or so ago I went to the university’s Jazz X-Tet performance and watched them perform. They had a female trumpet player and she was great.

Overall, the Celebrating Protest Series brought in amazing speakers… And it was awesome to meet people who have done so much and are so passionate about what they have fought for and do for a living.

I really enjoyed Kiku’s presentation on techno and post-techno in class. That was truly a treat… I remember my jaw dropping the entire time because it was all so new to me.

Emi’s visit was great, too. We all remember the snail mating story, don’t we? Haha.

And, of course, Beryl & Addie. American otaku unite! That was a very fun class period as well.

Intersex – Who should decide?

I think that in the interest of all parties involved, that the action applied should be determined on a case by case basis.

What is easiest for the parents to cope with? What is most affordable? What is easiest for the child to cope with? What is practical given how far along the child is in development? Is the child “leaning” to one gender or another in terms of hormone levels? Does this make one course of action medically more practical than the other? What do the physicians think is the best course of action given past cases they have examined in which the patients were similar? Is precedence more important in determining successful procedures or should they use this opportunity to maybe try an innovative new treatment?

I could spend all day coming up with questions and issues that they must ask and the point I want to make is that, for all our discussions and analysis of intersex, there DOES NOT exist a clear cut right or wrong. I think what we’re trying to get at (and all agree upon) is that these people deserve their human rights just as much as anyone else and should be informed of their situation and provided with all the information. For a physician to “decide” what is best for the child without consulting the parents and taking into account all the complications is a medical/ethical issue that is hotly debated as to when it is and is not appropriate.

While we do acknowledge that they are trained individuals in resolving these problems, we also must acknowledge that they too are people and can and will make mistakes. While their advice should be taken into serious consideration, we have to look at what all parties agree on as the best compromise in the course of action and they should keep the child’s health and happiness at the forefront of their objectives in deciding this.

Is our class going to resolve this issue? Certainly not! But I think we all have a better handle on the issues facing intersex and that can understand where Emi is coming from and why this topic deserves considerable attention.

Emi and transnational/racial adoption

Emi’s discussion of intersex bodies was really fascinating and valuable, I thought, especially the discussion of intersex vs. DSD classification.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend her intersex lecture, however I did make it to the one on transnational and transracial adoption, and I thought that was really interesting.  I had never really problematized the act of adopting across different lines, and I always used to assume that all adoption is positive because it gives someone “a better home.”  Even seemingly superficial adoptions like those done by the Hollywood elite of late seemed, to me, to at least be promoting some sort of global community, even if it is through a racist or objectifying means.

 

Some of my parents’ best friends, though, have twice adopted transracially, the potentially hazardous situation of identification has never occurred to me, and, as with the information I did hear about intersex people, the problem occurs with the parents as well as with the children.  Neither really knows how to define the child’s identity in our culture of binaries and absolutes, and both sides have trouble dealing. 

 

My immediate reaction is that race/nationality shouldn’t necessarily have anything to do with one’s identity, and identity is self-constructed based on one’s personal history, but of course this is kind of naïve.  People are treated a certain way based on the normative identities societally ascribed to them, and Emi helped bring some facets of this to my attention.

Emi Koyama’s Visit: Class visit, and Her Lectures on International Adoption and Intersex

We were lucky enough to have Emi Koyama visit our class, and give two really interesting talks for the Celebrating Protest Lecture Series. I first met her when she visited our class and gave a introduction to intersex, and it’s common misperceptions. Emi is a really great speaker, she got our entire class hooked as soon as she shared with us her infamous snail story. Snails apparently dance around each other for hours, circling each other before they mate. Eventually when they decide they like each other, they swap by the neck and both parties are impregnated. These snails are what hermaphrodites are, never humans. She spoke of the mistaken identity of intersex people, mainly intersex children. I had not much previous knowledge about intersex and found her class visit very informational. She shared with us major shojo mangas and boy mangas that now feature intersex. They seemed interesting and hope to read them some day.

Her activist writing on children of intersex was really interesting. Until I read her articles, I had never thought about the negative impact the medical community could potentially have on intersex children. Because I studied biology at this school, and work at the University hospital, I only have views of the medical community as doing anything they can to help people. It was unusual for me to hear her speak on the negative impact medicine could potentially have on these children. The reason she sees this is because these children, due to their unusual physical appearance, are often times examined by an entire medical team. It is sometimes referred to as a “public stripping” where the children must undress in front of a team. Sometimes pictures are taken of their naked bodies. I am a bit torn on this issue, as it makes sense that the medical team’s purpose is to pursue further medical knowledge of intersex so that more can be done to help intersex children. However at the same time, the way things are done currently seem to be a bit extreme and very careless of the children’s emotions. Hopefully improvements can be made for the future.

Emi Koyama – Thoughts

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend Emi’s talks, and it’s been a few weeks so I don’t remember a terrible amount from her class visit, so primarily this is just thoughts on her website and articles and ideas, and not so much specific to her time here.  I apologize.

That said,  Emi has a ton of interesting ideas.  Her thoughts on DSD vs. intersex, for example – it’s good that she is a) putting to rest myths about what it is and b) continuing to call attention to it.  Unsurprisingly, a lot of people don’t know (or care to know) a lot about this type of thing, which makes what Emi’s doing even more important.  Her dedication is admirable – like the way she promotes changing the term to DSD even though the connotation might be troublesome, but by doing so it might draw more attention to it both within the medical community and beyond, and work to legitimize it in the eyes of the public as a serious issue.  Emi presents a lot of ideas in ways or viewpoints that are very unique and help shed new light on them, such as when dealing with the issue of children being examined at hospitals, the “sexual shaming” practices and even the surgeries.  Things like this are often seen from only one perspective, and that perspective is very often supposed to be an “objective” perspective that comes from either the medical community or the general public, but never the people with the conditions themselves.  This is perhaps what’s most important about her ideas on DSD and disability theory – she not only sheds light on these issues, but does so from the vantage point of those closest to it, which often gets lost in the mix.  And even though I’m not entirely convinced on the idea that disorders exist solely because society sees them as different (and I’m probably interpreting the notion wrong), I think it is important to note that this distinction of “differentness” is often viewed as negative (hence “disorder”), and Emi’s ideas are crucial in considering how this differentness is only negative from “normal” society’s vantage point, and needs to be considered from the “victim” side as well.